Dark is falling and so I expect Jason to reappear any moment. He was out enjoying one last stint in the tree stand. No luck harvesting a deer for our canning shelves and freezer but it seems he is hardly disappointed about the hours spent in the woods! We didn't expect that he would have the luxury of taking some time there this evening as we are starting our travels almost a day early to beat the pending snow storm. But it's been a relaxed day getting ready and so he is enjoying watching his chickens forage in the woods (without any deer for company).We've had a few "firsts" in the last week or so that seem worth documenting here for the fun of looking back on it.
The first was that I'm now in the habit of making our sauerkraut and having some on hand. Alida tasted it a long time ago and enjoyed it but she has more recently acquired a thing against sauerkraut made with green cabbage. That may be in part because we had some pink sauerkraut that her aunt had made and that has become the only kind she wishes to eat. She was asking, multiple times, for us to make the pink kind. So we did! Right now it looks very purple so we'll see what happens in the coming 4 weeks or so. I'm grateful for my new (or better said repurposed) stomper that makes the job much easier. I was amused by Alida's methods - not exactly the most efficient in getting the juices out of the cabbage but entertaining to watch:
The second new thing was we have our very first biochar pit. We hope it is the first of many! Jason had heard of the pit method of making biochar (pyrolyzed woody debris to be charged with nutrients before use as a soil amendment) and got the idea of using a biochar pit as the base for our next composting toilet dumping station. That way the biochar would be there to soak up what leaches into the ground and would act as a filter, while charging the biochar at the same time. Then a few years down the road when we use the compost, beneath it we will have an incredible soil amendment and in the process we'll have sequestered a little carbon - bonus! It was a simple process, that Alida got really into helping with until she got a little scratch on her finger from the brush. I imagine a future blog post from Jason is in order to get his reflections on his recent stints in the tree stand and the biochar adventure. 
And, finally, I made pure 100% wheat grass juice today. Wowzers! So we don't grow enough wheat to grind it into flour but we grow plenty to have a little wheat grass farm. We've grown it off and on for months and I've blended it with water, strained it and used in smoothies. However, upon more reading recently, it seems the best shot of nutrients is when you have 100% wheat grass juice immediately after extracting it. Supposedly 1 oz of the stuff is equivalent to about 2 lb of veggies (I'm not vouching for this site, but if even 10% of these claims have any validity, it's pretty amazing stuff: http://thechalkboardmag.com/
I used Jason's meat grinder and full colander of wheat grass gave me 3 one-ounce shots of pure wheat grass juice. Yep, that's it! I took one "shot" down to Jason who was dousing his biochar pit with water and we toasted our wheat grass juice and then partook of it (making a number of faces in the process). It sure tastes like it would have some kind of impact! I'm not sure I have anything to compare it to. The last ounce went into a yummy banana strawberry smoothie for the girls.
It's fun to feel space opening up in my days at home to experiment with more things like this. Who knows what I'll be cooking up in the kitchen by the end of the winter! It's also fun to have Alida and Kali both being highly interested in participating... I'm looking forward to expanding my array of food options come December 1 when my current 60-day food experiment comes to an end. In the meantime, I've been enjoying lots of amazing salads with lettuce from our garden, red cabbage from our neighbor next door, kale from our garden or next door, and a parsley pesto yogurt dressing with parsley from our friend's farm and lots of garlic from ours. But now we must turn our attention to moving westward! This has been a long anticipated trip - time to savor with family, time for Jason and I to spend together while the girls entertain and are entertained by grandparents, time away from our project list (one last hurrah before the bathroom remodel commences), and time in the mountains. And it looks like we might get to enjoy some snow too!
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